Toronto man's death by speedboat in Cuba shrouded in secrecy

TORONTO MAN

Sitting on the shore of Cuba's Santa Lucia beach last month, Anca Tonea could see a speedboat stopped in the bright blue waters, close to the reef where her husband, Gigel, was snorkeling.

When she saw a passenger lift a man out of the water, Tonea knew something wasn't right. The man's flippered feet, she says, were dangling off the side of the boat, lifeless.

Tonea watched the boat speed away, and when her husband failed to return to the beach, she knew it had been his body hoisted aboard.

After a chaotic few hours seeking answers — Where was her husband taken? Could she see him? How was he doing? — she says she was brought to the hotel lobby, where a resort employee delivered the devastating news.

Gigel, a vibrant 66-year-old dental technician and father of three, was dead.

The Toronto man's grieving family is now left with questions about what led to Gigel's death and reeling from the way they say Anca was treated.

The Toneas say Cuban officials did not allow Anca to see her husband's body, asked her to identify him using just the mass-produced flippers he had brought from Toronto, and — most painfully — failed to inform her of the cause of death while she was still in Cuba. Until she arrived in Toronto the following day, Anca says, she believed Gigel had suffered a stroke or gone into cardiac arrest in the water.

It wasn't until her three kids used Google to translate the Spanish police report, they say, that they learned he was run over by a speedboat while snorkeling.

"It was the word 'propeller' that told us," said her eldest, Alexander Dandy, referring to a Cuban police report that says Gigel suffered fatal injuries to his head and back after being struck by the boat. "The idea that she left Cuba without knowing how he died, that's very sinister."

The Provincial Criminal Investigation Unit in Cuba is now investigating the case. That's standard procedure for cases involving a foreigner's death, according to Yoan Dominguez, the Canadian consular officer assigned to the case. The incident could constitute a homicide offence, says the police report provided to the family.

The police unit responsible could not be reached for comment. Dominguez refused repeated requests from the Star to provide contact information for the appropriate investigators.

Ian Trites, a spokesperson for Foreign Affairs, said the federal government department could not provide any details of the case for privacy reasons, including whether criminal charges had been laid.

The Gigels booked their vacation package through Sunwing, and were staying at a resort called Gran Club Santa Lucia. Asked if Sunwing staff at the resort knew the details of the cause of death and could have told Anca prior to her departure, Janine Chapman, a spokesperson for Sunwing Travel Group said it's the Canadian consulate's role "to obtain information and documentation from local authorities on police investigations (including cause of death from the medical examiner report) and communicate with the next of kin."

She added that once Sunwing representatives learned of the death, they contacted the consulate, provided "emotional support" to Tonea, and coordinated her return flight and repatriation efforts.

The Cuban police account of what occurred can be pieced together through the report provided to Tonea, as well as information Dominguez told the family he gathered from conversations with police.

According to witness testimony given to police, Gigel was struck by a small speedboat, operated by a local marina, shortly before noon on May 22. Police told Dominguez that the unnamed captain did not see Gigel "since the prow of his boat was raised because of the speed."

"He declared just having realized what happened after he felt having hit something with the motor and when he turned back to have a look he then realized that it was a swimmer," Dominguez wrote to the family in an email on May 29.

Police also apparently told Dominguez there is a sign on the beach informing tourists about the limits of the swimming area.

But Tonea contests accounts that her husband had travelled out of bounds. She recalls watching him stand up in the water as he snorkeled, and seeing the water come well beneath his shoulders. She doesn't believe he ventured so far from shore that he left the swimming area.

The family has retained lawyer Barry Swadron to continue probing the incident.

"We will do everything within our power to investigate the circumstances of this clearly preventable death. We will enlist the assistance of the Canadian department of foreign affairs, tour operators, fellow tourists, Cuban officials and others," Swadron said in a statement.

Finding reliable information, said son Bogdan Tonea, has been like "playing broken telephone," because there is a lot of confusion over finding out what occurred, what agencies to consult, when they will be provided with an autopsy report, and more.

"Where's our right to defend our father? Because all we're going to get is just what the Cubans say that happened," said Bogdan.

He adds that the family wants to know what led to the death in hopes of preventing a similar accident, noting that hordes of tourists flock to the Caribbean country each year.

Chapman, the Sunwing representative, said tourists should be assured that Cuba "has very strict safety regulations which preclude motorized water vessels from approaching areas restricted for recreation."

The Tonea family is now left waiting for Cuban officials to act; in an email to the family, Dominguez, the consular officer, warned that Canadians involved in such proceedings "can expect to face long delays in the effort to resolve their case."

Cuban authorities, he wrote, do not share police reports with foreign embassies or with the public in Cuba.

The family is taking comfort in the fact that they are now able to bury Gigel. His body arrived from Cuba last week, and his funeral is set for Wednesday.

Tonea hopes that will bring some closure. In the days since his death, the widow has found herself thinking her husband is just away at work.